I have submitted bug reports for Mozilla and besides the obvious hanger-ons it's very clear that all of Mozilla's developers work for Netscape. Mozilla is not an Open-Source project like everyone's been preaching. Sure people have submitted their own little gizmo to add but thankfully the've abandoned all that crap and are getting down to the metal now. The Open-Sourcing of Netscape was a failure and it's time we fess up and wrote it off as a necessary experiment.

Don't bash Netscape because you'll be bashing Mozilla in the process. The're one and the same.

By almost any technical measure, IE is a better browser than Netscape/Mozilla (N/M)

I have a different opinion.

IE's HTML parser is crap, if the HTML is fscked it guesses what it should look like. it shouldn't do that

try loading a page that is not reachable, not only does the IE window loading the page hang but ALL IE windows are completely locked up

IE is integrated into windows, there is a Mac version but it was developed independent from the windows version. what does this tell us: IE is not at all portable

mozilla is WAY more flexible than IE will ever be. a few examples: you can modify the GUI or even build completely different applications based on mozilla in XUL, Mozilla can be easily embedded, and not just through an activeX component, it can e.g. even be embedded in a java app.

IE's HTML parser is crap, if the HTML is fscked it guesses what it should look like. it shouldn't do that

Uh, yes it should - it's always a pain when a third-party site doesn't display, and you can't fix it. Although it would be nice to have a mode that did strict testing for your own pages - oh wait, they do. Just add the appropriate DOCTYPE.

try loading a page that is not reachable, not only does the IE window loading the page hang but ALL IE windows are completely locked up

What the hell are you smoking? Are you using IE for Win 3.1? IE 5.0 doesn't do that on any computer I've used, 98SE or 2K. And IE6.0beta on XP most certainly doesn't do it. Granted, if one window crashes the browser, all the windows for that process are lost, but at least with IE you can run multiple processes - which you can't do with Mozilla.

IE is integrated into windows, there is a Mac version but it was developed independent from the windows version. what does this tell us: IE is not at all portable

Uh, so? Very fex applications are really portable, and Mozilla isn't an exception - most of the parsing code is portable, but when you're dealing with GUI code, and not using Mozilla's hideous chrome hack and actually (gasp!) using the native GUI then it'll generally require rewritting large portions of code.

mozilla is WAY more flexible than IE will ever be. a few examples: you can modify the GUI or even build completely different applications based on mozilla in XUL, Mozilla can be easily embedded, and not just through an activeX component, it can e.g. even be embedded in a java app.

This is actually two points, so I'll tackle the first one - uh, first.

You can modify the GUI in IE too - in a sensible way - you can customize the rebars and add buttons and the like. With your mouse. Without restarting IE. Right click on any toolbar and choose "customize." You can't do that in Mozilla, and changing stuff is a damned pain, involving JavaScript and XUL. And if you think changing the "look" is important - you're wrong. Having a consistant look should be of highest importance, but Mozilla decided to go their own path.

And come November when I'm running XP, Mozilla will look really strange in the Luna-scape. Oh well.

Your second point about embedding is interesting, seeing as ActiveX is the way to embed controls in other applications in Windows (not just webpages, any app can embed any ActiveX control). And Moz does this too. I've never seen Mozilla embed via Java though, link anyone?

2) How did the Open-Source community benifit from the Open-Sourcing of Netscape?

[Note: Before you mention Galeon, remember that it was born in response to the poor performace of earlier Mozilla builds.]

I think carrying the burdon of the Open-Source initiative was why the development processed has dragged on as it has. Do you remember the first couple of builds? Is it possible that they would have made more progress without this burdon?

Don't get me wrong (again), I am quite pro-Open-Source and manage two 100+ dl/month OSS codebases myself. I'm simply stating the fact that in the case of Netscape, it turned out to be a poor example of why companies should Open-Source and share their code. Companies should share this code in the name of progress but they should be more sophisticated about how.

The Open Sourcing of Netscape has been a grand experiment, certainly not without it's hiccups.

Your Question 1 is a very difficult one to answer as it demands some supposition as to what would have occurred had they not opened the source. Possibly the dumping of the "Mozilla Classic" codebase was forced somewhat by Open Sourcing. While this has had both negative and positive aspects, ultimatly I think it was a positive thing. We may have had a browser sooner otherwise, but I don't think it'd be a good idea in the long term

Question 2 is much easier to answer. Code. Forgetting the Browser product itself, Mozilla.org has made available Bugzilla and Bonsai. Components such as Network Security Services (which is being leveraged in Ximians Evolution I believe).

As a grand experiment even Mozillas 'mistakes' are valuable as they can be learnt from.

Note that the article was written by Paul Festa of CNET News.com. As soon as I read that article yesterday on CNET (about the upcoming release, with the same wording), I sent him a letter and CC'd Jai Singh (Editor-in-Chief) about it.

Paul Festa has been, throughout the browser wars, firmly on the side of Microsoft. At least, that's the opinion you tend to get after reading his articles.

He also has no memory of history. Here is an excerpt from my letter to him:

Paul writes, "Whether Netscape 6.1 can rally the Netscape faithful remains to be seen. While Netscape 6 encountered first delays and then scathing reviews, Microsoft assembled an overwhelming lead in the browser market."

You know Paul, that sounds strangely familiar. Those that forget history are "doomed" to repeat it. To add a little integrity to your article, you might also point out that the same was true in reverse when Microsoft started out with MSIE: Their first versions received scathing reviews (was usually LAUGHED at), while Netscape
assembled an overwhelming lead in the browser market.

Let CNET know you don't like his biased reporting by emailing their editors [cnet.com].

And just so you don't think I'm some crazy, "Netscape loyalist," I actually use MSIE throughout the day and like it.

Paul Festa has to be one of the most misinformed, biased reporters I have ever read.

I've seen numerous pieces he's written about Mozilla or Netscape where the facts have been grossly distorted and crucial details have been omitted or the wrong emphasis has been place. And all of this with large amounts of negative spin and sometimes even going as far as to accuse AOL of some major conspiracy or other.

Personally I think he's been slighted by Netscape in the dim and distant past and now he has an axe to grind. Certainly it's not about browsers because I get the distinct impression he would print the same mulch even if Mozilla was by far and away the better browser.

Nope, there was an IE 1.0 -- I saw it distributed with a CD collection of MS PR/white papers. (My boss at the time ran out of his office saying "You gotta see this!" so that we could all gather around and chuckle.)

Well, they do kinda have a point, especially if you buy into the "browser wars" buzzword. By this point, if you're on a Windows box -- which most people are, especially those who read MSNBC for their "news" -- the odds are that you're using IE. I use a Windows box, and, honestly, I like IE... and I was one of the most die-hard against it, until it went to version 5.0 (SP1) while Netscape was still wasting away in version 4.x.

The point that he's trying to make is that by now, unless you have a major grudge against M$ (not that anyone on/. has such a thing) or have a Linux box (same difference?;-)you've probably caved and gone with IE now. So loyalists are all that are left.

I don't want that IE piece of *** on my Windows system (Win95). When it was installed, things slowed to a crawl. When I removed it, they sped up again. Mozilla may take awhile to start (since I don't compare it against IE, I don't know. Seems pretty quick to me.), but it never did that to me.

I don't mind paying for a browser while I'm using it. But to take that kind of a performance hit all the time is really... well, it just seems stupid to me. I don't upgrade fast enough to be able to pay that kind of price.

Um, what exactly don't you like about Netscape 4.x (now 4.78)? It's stable (as least on windows and FreeBSD), fast and a nice integrated mail client (sucky for newsgroups though).

(Note: I am not an IE fan, in fact I use Mozilla as my main browser; also note: most of my Netscape 4.x experience is with the Linux version, your mileage may vary).

Here's a quick, of the top of my head, list of some things I don't like about Netscape 4.x
* Pathetically non-standard CSS implementation
* Annoyingly quirky DOM implementation
* Crashes more than Mozilla 0.9.2 and above (at least for me)
* Mail client can't handle multiple accounts
* Does not properly handle being executed more than once at a time
* Pointless HTML editor that just takes up space
* Awkward rendering; particularly bad handling of fonts and text placement
* Badly chosen or missing keyboard shortcuts
* Occasionally corrupts downloaded binaries

Yes, some of these gripes also carry over to Mozilla (eg integrated HTML editor), but it's already pretty much surpassed 4.x in features (it's missing a few, but has many that 4.x couldn't even think about), and blown way past it in standards compliance and ease to develop for.

IE 5.x is (mostly) more standards compliant than Netscape 4.x, but at the expense of security (on windows) or performance (on unix). It is also, in my experience, far less stable than Netscape 4.x.

I'm looking forward to the day when I can focus my website development on looking good on IE 5.0+, Netscape 6.1+ (6.0 is best forgotten) and Mozilla 1.0+, and dump support for both Netscape and IE's obnoxious 4.x browsers.

Mozilla is still not production? Why would Netscape release their product when Mozilla hasn't released there?
Is this just to cover up the SCREWUP with Netscape 6.0(1)?
Will there be a 6.2 when Mozilla reaches 1.0?

"Mozilla is still not production.."
You dont seem to realize Mozilla will never be "Production" . It will always be "Developmental" that is the reason it exists; to support the spin off of versions that can be polished into production by any Producers..

Branding = AOL/Netscape inspired bookmarks and messenger.add the AOL messenger in the sidebar, and a dictionary. oh, and don't forget the product registration and mynetscape account setup. You can bypass the registration, but the myNetscape portal is a nice addition to the browser if only to backup bookmarks and adress book.

This is not a MSNBC story. It's a CNET authored story-- the original of which is here. [cnet.com] It is inaccurate and short sighted to continue to give credit to a Microsoft owned network, but even more so in this particular case, where a conflict of interest might reasonably be suspected.

If Microsoft had ever released IE for Linux, this would be even more of a dead issue.

A valuable lesson here - it doesn't matter how good the technology is if you take too long to produce it and don't market it well. (of course, that same principle could be applied to almost any product.)

Most Unix users still use Netscape, since IE simply doesn't exist and the alternatives are either still in development or not free, or simply out of habit without one established de-facto standard alternative.

So for Unix users I don't get why it would be too late. Yes it is late and it would have been nice to have a more decent browser earlier, but that doesn't change the fact that finally there is a browser (NS6 or Mozilla) poised to become the de-facto standard browser for UNIX.

IE Already exists for Solaris, in fact I'm running it right now on my Sun Ultra5... Which means Linux is probably around the corner. Whats a better way to compete with Linux than to create products for it? Futher pentrating the market.. Sigh..

IE was out for HPUX and Solaris years ago - and there is still no Linux version. I don't really see MS making anything for Linux. Partially because it would give some validity to the OS, and partially because it runs on the same hardware as Windows - which means if someone no longer had to boot Windows to view a web page or read a doc, there is one less OS sell.

Step one - clear your cache
Step two - load up the biggest waste of bandwidth page you can find in IE. Make a mental note of the time it took to load the page.
Step three - repeat with Mozilla.

Even with my cable modem there's a marked difference. When I load/.'s front page IE takes about two seconds to get from the top banner ad to the bottom of the page. With Mozilla I can't time it. The whole page just pops up.

And besides, I think Mozilla looks real cool with the Aqua theme I downloaded. Only problem I have is that it freezes when I try to download 78,000 headers from alt.binaries.images.

They didn't claim IE wouldn't work without windows, they claimed windows wouldn't work without IE...

I do think integrating an HTML renderer is a good idea. The bad idea is taking over all file extensions, putting the icons on the desktop, intentionally 'fixing' your OS so the competitors products don't work, and everything else MS did.

"I see you are writing an article about a product that is not made by Microsoft. Would you like some help in creating confusing^W^W^W^W^W^W^Wcompound/complex-sounding sentences to cloud^W^W^W^W^Wclarify the issues involved with this incident?"

Well, alright, Netscape 6.1 has been released. Isn't it much more worthy to keep tracking Mozilla's nightly builds though? I'd rather use it, since Netscape is based on it, and it's code is open, after all.

Over a year ago Mozilla was supposed to be put under a dual GPL/NPL licensing scheme. To date absolutely nothing has been done about it. I'm rather amazed that the KDE people recieved such a thorough lashing over the licensing issues with Qt, while Mozilla has been allowed to scamper along for over a year without as much as a whimper.

I'm often amazed when I hear people talking about Mozilla and it's GPL nature. Mozilla is not GPL at all. If it were, Galeon could include the Gecko rendering engine without having to carry along the whole freaking Mozilla project.

I like Mozilla; I think it's a valiant effort, but if the reason you're chosing to use it is because it's "Free"... well, I think you might be in for a rude awakening.

Sometime less than a year ago mozilla.org announced intentions to (begin) work toward a dual licensing scheme with the _MPL_ (not NPL) and the GPL or LGPL. This is not as easy as flipping a switch and saying "done." It will require contacting the hundreds of developers that have checked in millions of lines of code in thousands of files and getting agreement. More than "absolutely nothing" has been done about it. The list of contributors is being constructed. The research and discussions about the options available (dual with GPL or LGPL or modifications to MPL) is happening. Big projects don't happen overnight.

Where do you hear these "people talking about Mozilla and it's GPL nature"? I hear people talking about it and it's MPL nature. You're right when you say "Mozilla is not GPL at all". It isn't. It's MPL and NPL.

If you don't consider Mozilla free then you have a fundamental disagreement with stallman and the fsf who say the MPL is a free software license (GPL incompatable but free).

Well, it uses alot of small.gifs for one thing, But you get a much better picture if you look at the individual packages (which can be downloaded seperatly, so you don't have to get the full 25MB)
browser.xpi = 5.6MB = The main program
jre13i.exe = 7.5MB = Java Runtime Engine
mail.xpi = 1.4MB = Mail program (which isn't standalone btw)
nsrp8.exe = 3.7MB Real Player for netscape
winamp275.exe = 1.6 WinAmp
And another 5MB of 16 smaller packages like PSM, Flash, and spellcheck, many of which are essential like aol's art extention, net2phone, and some plugin for helping identify HP printers.

First off, let me just say that while "Netscape loyalists" may not be all that much of a misnomer, "computer geeks" aren't the only bunch of people still using Netscape. A big group of people who still use it are those who aren't all that computer literate and wish to continue using Netscape because it's what they started with and what they know. The same reasons why my mother still uses Eudora Lite (or whatever they're calling themselves now) since WFW 3.11 instead of Outlook Express. There are also a lot of corporations that use this kind of mentality when deciding on software. "Netscape still works for us, why bother changing software?"

As for the "Why Netscape instead of Mozilla?" group, there are advantages to using a mildly invasive, "shrink-wrapped" piece of software. The fact that it's official Netscape means that customers have a single and (usually) definative source of help and information in the form of Netscape themselves. While Mozilla has Bugzilla and on-line forums, that's not all that appealing to those who view themselves more as "casual computer users" than "participants in the community." And again, this is something the corporate types prefer.

So before you jump down Netscape's throat for releasing this, remember that not everybody is a Free software junkie. Personally, I wish they released this update sooner, and I think it will be interesting to see how Mozilla vs. Netscape works out. This could be the definative closed-source vs. open-source competition, with about as even a playing field between the two as you're going to get.

A lot of us stick with Netscape because, in spite of its flaws, it still does a much better job than any version of IE.

There are a lot of things Netscape brings to the table that IE can't match, things like support for roaming profiles, excellent support for large and complex collections of bookmarks, slick javascript programmable "personal toolbar" buttons which can be very handy for instant searches and lookups of any term on any page, a very capable mail client written by people that bothered to read the MIME and MHTML RFCs before writing code, and an open mailbox format that interoperates with literally thousands of mailbox manipulation power tools.

As soon as IE can do all those things, all of which I use and rely on very heavily, I'll *think* about switching - until then, I'll stick with Netscape even though I would love to see a stable version of NS6 that includes all the features above. (Roaming in particular is absent in both NS6 and Mozilla, and there are no plans to fix this glaring hole. Grrrr.)

In a way, AOL/Netscape had to release v6.1 Right Now (TM), since IE 6 is going to be released next Wednesday [theregister.co.uk] This isn't to say that I don't like Netscape, though -- I download the Mozilla daily builds [mozilla.org] every day..

Kent Thuresson, the creator of the 6.0 Orbit theme, has released post-6.0 versions at http://www.ninelineman.com/orbit/ [ninelineman.com]. It looks like he had it working in builds as recent as Feb 15, 2001, which was around Mozilla 0.8.

I know IE is loose with html decoding, but I am strict when writing it.

There are certain things that are broke in the new Netscape.

Don't believe me? Load up www.Bridge.com in Netscape 4.72, no problems... Load it up in 6+... Oops!

We spent a whole lot of manpower trying to keep it compatible with 4 to 4.72 and every single freaking release changed the specs and things broke. Granted we were taxing dhtml to the maximum capability it still should have worked fine and it does in NS4.72 and IE4+. Opera still has some problems but I'm working with their developers on fixing them.

That's right. So-called "Web" designers want to make "web pages" for IE 5 running on Windows 98 in 16-bit color at 800x600 or 1024x768. (some of them will begrudge you that last choice)
You have IE5.5? You run W2K? You like 1280x1024?
Sorry, web designers have no time for non-standard setups, it's all about the Average User.
If you're paying any "designers" who think along these lines -- fire them, at best they'll buy you an accessibility lawsuit down the line, at worst your customers will upgrade and just stop using your site.

I write web-based intranet applications. The sooner Nutscrape 4 dies, the better. Its proprietary DOM and weak CSS support cause me to write and test all my stuff twice.
I had high hopes for Netscape 6.0, but its performance on Windows is abysmal. If Netscape 6.1 performance is close to the latest Mozilla, it will be a lot easier to convince people to dump NS4.
None of the IS departments of our customers would ever allow Mozilla or Opera. For the few brave souls willing to venture away from IE, it's Netscape or nothing. A robust mainstream browser on Windows other than IE goes a long way towards keeping browsers standards-compliant. Yes, I realize Gecko is the same on NS and Mozilla, but try telling that to Fortune 100 companies.
I'm looking forward to the day when I can write DHTML for one browser and it works everywhere.

Standard compliance : Netscape is the most standard complaint browser out there, even the internet explorer 6.0 beta fails to render pages correcly. For example just go to W3 CSS page [w3.org] and compare the pages rendered my mozilla/ns and ie. Note the position of the toolbar as you scroll down the page in both browsers. Also you can choose alternate stylesheets on that site using View->Use Stylesheet

Speed : Performance is comparable to that of IE now.. If you want faster than IE browsers use Galeon or skipstone which are based on mozilla

UI issues : Unfortunately mozilla/ns does not support some features which used to work in NS4.x.
Dynamic Font issues bugs 52746 [mozilla.org]
Ugly list items ON LINUX 91816 [mozilla.org]

25 Megs _is_ rather amazing, especially considering the Mozilla release it's based on (v0.9.2) is only 8.32Meg in size (for the Windows version).

Weird.

I'll be sticking with Mozilla v0.9.3 for now, thanks, though I _do_ wish they'd speed up the bookmarks manager by at _least_ an order of magnitude (at _least_!). Definite bookmark weirdness in v0.9.3 for me (on Windows).

Well, 6.x is just as slow and bloated as Mozilla, but Netscape 4.7x is much faster than either.

The only reason I upgraded from Netscape 3.02 to
4.xx was to use the IMAP mail client. 3.02 was probably the fastest web browser ever made.

Is there any actual feature advantage to Mozilla/Netscape6.x over Netscape 4.78?

And what is all the fuss over IE? Every once
in a while I hunt down a windows machine to try
it out and it still sucks just as bad as the old
days. I really hate the was it moves things around on the screen as it renders the page. Blah.

Well, 6.x is just as slow and bloated as Mozilla, but Netscape 4.7x is much faster than either.

6.1 is better than 6.0 in all respects, especially performance. Mozilla has seen amazing performance increases since the branch NS6 was forked from. It's still got some improvements to go yet, but 6.1 (Mozilla 0.9.x) is actually usable, as opposed to 6.0.

Yes, it's true. Netscape6/Mozilla will never be as fast as NS4 (at least as far as the UI goes). For better or for worse, Mozilla really is a platform, and along with it you get all of the overhead. But not only is that overhead seeing plenty of profiling and optimization, but keep in mind processor speed has at least doubled since the project began. And processor speed continues to increase. So while Mozilla will never be as fast as NS4, there will come a time when the performance difference will be statistical noise, and no one will care. Yes, we all want a competitor to IE that can beat it in performance now, but I like to think of Mozilla as the "browser of the future."

Is there any actual feature advantage to Mozilla/Netscape6.x over Netscape 4.78?

I don't know if you deliver web content or not, but the big thing is that Mozilla/NS6 implements the W3C recommended standards like CSS1/2 and DOM. If you're just a normal user, this may not impress you so much, but believe me, this is very significant. The sooner we can bury Netscape4, the sooner content deliverers can start to develop using CSS, and truly cross-platform web applications can be built using the DOM. In other words, there may not be an immediate advantage (at least, a big advantage from a user's perspective), but the real benefit is in the web's future.

And what is all the fuss over IE?

Maybe I'll get tarred and feathered for this, but IE really is a good browser. It implements quite a bit of CSS and DOM, and, while it does have its braindead idiosynchrasies (like all browsers), developing IE-compatable content doesn't make me pull my hair out like NS4 does.

<sarcasm>
Netscape 3 was so fast because it ignored half of the HTML on the page.
</sarcasm>

The main advantage I'd give to Moz 0.9.3 is that it finally seems faster to me than 4.7. I think it still takes a few more seconds to startup, but once started, it is just as fast if not faster than 4.7. Beyond that, it actually renders correctly and (mostly) according to standards. Try bestowing that distinction upon 4.x.

And if you think IE still sucks as bad as it used to (pre-3.0 days), I certainly wonder what you're actually trying it out on. I've used IE extensively for the past couple years and I can't stop laughing at your assumption that it is still as bad. IMHO, IE 5 is the fastest, most feature complete browser available for any operating system. Maybe one day I'll be able to say this about Mozilla instead (and I hope I do!), but I certainly know that I won't ever say that about Netscape 4.x.

There are several different builds of IE5 floating about and they are significantly different at least at the HTTP level; I know this to my cost because (at least) one generates incorrect RFC 1967 headers, and this breaks my maybeupload [weft.co.uk] package.

IE 5.5 and IE 6 are much better. While I use Konqi as my browser of choice, there's no doubt that the latest IEs are very good.

I'm stuck in a Win2k lab at the moment and the IE5 here must be different from everyone else's IE5. It crashes CONSTANTLY. It abhors PNGs.

It must be a badly broken install for it to behave like that. I use Win2K Pro SP2 and IE 5.5 at home and at work, and it almost never crashes. Come to think of it, I think IE has never crashed. I've had some weirdness at work lately with VC++ and MSDN (gonna try uninstalling and reinstalling tomorrow), but most of the rest of the time, It Just Works. It certainly doesn't have any problems with webpages (mine [dyndns.org] uses PNGs for nearly all graphics that aren't JPEGs).

Greater quality control. The commercial version is beat on a lot more than any Mozilla milestone meaning it should be more robust.

Some limited support. Netscape will more than likely release another minor update in a few months to catch any top crashers. It will also release updates for any security issues that arise. With Mozilla you must apply a patch or wait for the next milestone.

Instant messenger.. Netscape has AIM built in. Clever people may even figure out how to remove the advert from the bottom by editting the chrome.

Spell checker.. Moz doesn't have one of these due to the fact that the dictionary is licenced.

Bundled crap/goodies.. The installer can download and install RealPlayer, Shockwave, Net2Phone, WinAmp and some other stuff if you let it.

Netscape branding and version. Believe it or not but some people trust something more when its called 6.1 than 0.9.3.

Netscape Netcentre integration. Register when you open a new profile and the instance messenger, side panels and home page are all customised to your taste.

Obviously some people may not be perceive some of these things as advantages, but that is why Mozilla exists. You're free to choose either. Mozilla is free of the commercialism and out on the cutting edge but you will experience more crashes as a result of that.

* Some limited support. Netscape will more than likely release another minor update in a few months to catch any top crashers. It will also release updates for any security issues that arise. With Mozilla you must apply a patch or wait for the next milestone.

correction, with Mozilla you must wait for the next _nightly_ release. You don't have to wait for a milestone. About avery 12 hours a new build for mac, win32 and linux is made off of the tip of the development trunk. To suggest that updates from Netscape come any faster than updates to Mozilla is plain silly. Even if you were just talking about Milestones, we had about 7 of those between Netscape 6 and 6.1

But Asa, nightly releases are even more buggier than milestones (in general). This means to fix one security flaw you're having to run code which is even more likely to contain bugs.

And I didn't say NS came out with fixes any faster than Mozilla, I just said they provided limited support for a release. That means fixing the security holes and crash bugs without dragging in a new bunch of features with their own set of problems. I know Mozilla has come out with plenty of milestones between 6.0 and 6.1 but that's nothing to do with the point I was making.

Mozilla and Netscape 6.1 render HTML & CSS extremely well. Where there is a problem it usually boils down to broken HTML, CSS or Javascript in the actual content and not a fault in the browser. A common fault is JS with code paths for IE (checking for document.all), Netscape 4.x (checking for document.layers) and other. Since Mozilla and Netscape 6.1 are deemed as Other because they support neither document.all or document.layers, it often runs into untested and broken JS.

Sorry, I just plain flat don't believe a word of this. It looks to me like you're just trying to slam AOL.

I've had several netcenter accounts, and know many other with one as well, and I've never encountered any of what you report.

I niether like nor dislike AOL - personally, I've always wanted a real Internet connection, so I couldn't even tell you what the AOL portal looks like. For the record, I have not found them to engage in any of the bad behavior you report, though...

The spellchecker engine in Mozilla isn't just a list of words. I don't know the details but I expect dictionary contains tables and trees to ensure rapid checking and catching of typo errors.

Sure you could write a checker in Mozilla that you read a big.txt file of 150,000 words but it would be as slow as hell. Someone will have to source a decent GPL spellchecker library or write one and a dictionary before Mozilla will have anything similar.

>Someone will have to source a decent GPL spellchecker library or write one and a dictionary before Mozilla will have anything similar.

This was done before Linux even existed (I believe I read about ispell [gnu.org] in a book that was printed before the Linux "revolution").

Newer stuff like aspell and pspell would be well suited to Mozilla. It should be in there, and I'd help do it, but my skillset is currently limited to simple TurboC, Assembly, Turing, and Visual Basic (and another language I won't speak of).:-/

You are wrong about this. Netscape 6.1 has been beaten on internally and by beta testers for the last three months to ensure the top crashing bugs are eliminated. No risky new code has been incorporated as is the case with main trunk development.

The net result of this is that NS 6.1 will be an extremely stable product, much more so than Mozilla in the next few milestones anyway. Having said that Mozilla is reasonably robust itself so its horses for courses.

This might work with a raw 0.9.2 build, but probably not 0.9.3 or anything later.

This is because changes to string classes, smart pointers, interfaces and so on mean the spellchecker module won't load correctly at runtime. It will fail because some export or other cannot be found in xpcom.dll or it may crash Mozilla outright.

There aren't any real advantages. Netscape has some added-value stuff, but none of it is really that important. The jist of it is that Netscape/is/ Mozilla. It's just a branded version. In the same sense that gtk-licq/is/ licq - with gtk. (There are better examples, but I can't think of any right now).

So average joe-blow might use Netscape because he doesn't like Internet Explorer, and has never heard of any other alternatives besides Netscape. Dell might create a Dell-branded, Mozilla-based browser. And Earthlink might create an Earthlink-branded, Mozilla-based browser.

It just nice to see that a company as visible (Albeit, a lot less than they use to be) as Netscape has released a new (Now worthwhile) browser.

Its aimed to the great ignorant masses. It hooks in to netscape.com and all of the portal madness that entails. Its fluffier than mozilla, and unlike mozilla, it won't expire in 30 days, asking for you to download the newest nightly. Yes, i know, it IS mozilla, but its mozilla with a AOL facelift.

You or i will use mozilla, and will probably get violent if someone tried to force us to use netscape ( i went from 4.x to mozilla about 3 months ago in linux and windows), but there are a lot of simpletons who like a browser they can understand.

Up until milestone M18, both nightly and milestone builds of the Mozilla browser expired 30 days after release. However, milestone releases 0.6 and later (including 0.9.3, which I am using right now) have the nag screen disabled.

Mention "Netscape Navigator" to Joe Internetuser and he might have a clue as to what you're babbling about. "Mozilla", while sporting an infinitely cooler name, doesn't have nearly as much recognition. Your average user might be willing to try Netscape because they at least know the name, but why should they try Mozilla? Most people don't know (or care) about the connection between the two.

For us geek types, Mozilla is the way to go. But it's important that Netscape stick around, making these releases, so that the rabble can remember there ARE alternative to the great AIEEE!!

How come zealots of tools that lack major functionality always turn it into a badge of honor? "Plugins? Those are for luzers! Music and video don't belong on a computer!"
Why don't you prove you are a real geek and go back to lynx on a vt100?

... crashed the Netscape on my well kept and up-to-date linux box. But simply by replacing the java plugin that came with Netscape 6.1 with
Sun's very own Java 1.3 plugin [sun.com] things changed.
And all I had to do to get that working was a simple symlink which was also well described in their
Quick Start guide [sun.com] for the average users aswell.

First off, try 0.9.3-- in my experience, it is definitely faster and more stable than 0.9.2. I've been using Mozilla for a while now and while it used to be true that 4.7 rendered faster than Mozilla, I don't think it is any more. At least on my Windows machine, Mozilla is inching towards the rendering speed of IE-- something Netscape 4 hasn't been able to come close to for quite some time. I'm not sure about my Linux boxes because I don't have Netscape 4 installed on those (Mozilla & Konqueror only).

I'd give Mozilla 0.9.3 before sticking with 4.7-- not only is it prettier but its definitely surpassed 4.7 at this point on stability, speed, and rendering accuracy/quality.

2) I have never had any problems with the plugins I use. If a plugin doesn't "recognize" Moz, keep an install of Netscape 4 around and copy the plugin files from Communicator/Program/plugins to Mozilla's plugin directory. Works like a charm for QuickTime at least, and I haven't found any other plugins I have a use for yet...;)

At least on Windows, Mozilla knows how to pickup known compatible plug-ins from the Netscape 4.x plugin directory automatically.

On my box works for Flash, QuickTime, Real, and Acrobat -- all registered in Help+About Plug-ins, but not in the Mozilla plugin directory. (And what happens if you don't have NS4 installed? Guess everyone needs to update their plug-in installers.)

The more Netscape keeps releasing beta code, the more users it's alienating. I know it's tough not having the latest and greatest 5.x (err 6.x) browser to market, but come on. By the time we get to 6.2 (i.e. Mozilla 1.0 stable), there will be five Netscape users left.

Basing 6.0 on Mozilla 0.6 (or whatever it was) was an incredibly stupid idea. But building 6.1 now off the Moz-0.9.2 source is the right thing to do. First, because Moz-0.9.2 is actually very stable -- the Mozilla folks are setting very high standards for Moz-1.0, and Moz-0.9.2 is already better then Netscape 4.x. Second, and more importantly, releasing 6.1 now gets 6.0 off the market and out of sight as soon as possible.

Even if 6.1 isn't a perfect browser yet, it at least gets rid of the abomination that is 6.0.

mozilla and netscape branched a while ago.. There are features in mozilla that are not in netscape. Image blocking is one of them I think. I am not sure what else. While it is true that they are patching netscape from mozilla patches they are two different branches. Mozilla 0.9.3 != Netscape 6.1 and mozilla 1.0 will probably not = netscape 6.2.

Netscape 6.0(1) was buggy as hell and this is an attempt at fixing that and possibly gaining market share. I.E. Those that like to run it cause it is NOT miscrosoft or those that are using a platform that does not have IE.

That's odd. I find Mozilla 0.9.3 incredibly stable on my systems. Then again, I use it on Linux and Windows NT, which are both relatively stable base OSes. I have crashes in it on my Win98 system, but then I have crashes in IE5.5 on that system about as often. Which implies that it's the underlying system, not the browser, that's unstable. It's hardly news that Win98's not nearly as stable as NT4, and if you've installed any third-party software on that Win98 box, things get really hairy.